Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> Peter K. wrote:
>
> >That's very Ace Cockburn of you. US desegragation is a good
> >argument against those who say the US Federal government
> >is uniquely evil and can never do any good anywhere at anytime.
>
> But I never said that. So your argument ain't with me.
What Yoshie, Justin, I and others have essentially said is simply that we don't know of any instance except for WW2 in the last century when u.s. military was used for any acceptable prupose. (And yammering about the south doesn't count -- for reasons that Justin has given.) Therefore, we conclude, the likelihood of its being used acceptably is vanishingly small. And when Peter throws in that "uniquely" he is being almost deliberately misleading.
Carrol
> Doug
P.S. Desegregation has nothing whatever to do with the present argument, which concerns the use of U.S. military power abroad. But I see now why Peter was elaborating that bizarre thought experiment of his. He claims that the U.S. government is uniquely good and does things out of the goodness of its heart rather than from external pressure. Thus he has to claim that Desegregation was not the result of _either_ black struggle _or_ the cold war, but rather of the beauty in the soul of the DP as exhbited by Kennedy and Johnson.